"As a woman I have no country.... As a woman my country is the whole world." -Virgina Woolf

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Two things I have in common with Miley Cyrus, or, I want to be a hunter-gatherer when I grow up

Ibis and Isaias left me to my own introverted devices last
weekend while they went to visit Abuelita, and I divided my time neatly between
the two halves of my split personality.

On Saturday I put on skinny jeans and went into town.I had a fancy coffee and graded homework
assignments.I thought about getting a
manicure but didn’t.I wandered around
the shops and tried on some clothes, bought a pair of slacks for work, and then had pozole and beer and gossip
with some relatives, went home.I was
perfectly happy with my day.

On Sunday I woke up early and didn’t even change out of my
funky cut-off sweatpants and stained tank top. I spread compost around the garden, cleaned
out the chicken yard, built a new compost pile, transplanted chile seedlings
and a little tree, cut some grass, dead-headed the dahlias and the zinnias.I collected the eggs and cooked “eggs in
purgatory” with fresh oregano and thyme and parsley from the garden, and made
mint-lime-lemongrass water with fresh everything from the garden.I was perfectly happy with my day.

I was perfectly happy with my day, and by the end of it, my
nails were dirty and broken and my knuckles were scratched and something had
bitten or stung my left index finger, leaving an impressive welt, and I thought,
what if I had gotten a manicure yesterday?That would have been stupid. And I wondered a little what the hell is wrong with me, that I can contemplate having my nails done one day, and pick up chicken crap with my bare hands the next.

So, okay, I contain multitudes.We all do.If I had had any delusions that I’m alone in this,they would have been dispelled when I turned
on the TV Sunday evening and your friend and mine Hannah Montana popped up, lip-syncing
her heart out in adorable lady-executive garb, only to run backstage and return
in pigtails, a gingham blouse, denim skirt, and cowgirl boots.“You can change your hair, you can change
your clothes,” she mouthed, “You can change your mind, that’s just the way it
goes.”Tell it, Miley.

It's true, you can change your hair and your clothes, but
you can only change your mind about the important stuff so many times before it
becomes tiresome and impractical. There
are some decisions to be made in the coming months, big ones, and I don’t know
which part of me should make them: the sipper of lattes or the builder of compost
piles.They want such different things.
They have such different concepts of security.One of them feels safe and satisfied when she sees that her paycheck
will cover the month’s expenses; the other, when she can make her entire meal
from the garden.

I’ve been tempted to break it down into a question of
head-vs.-heart, or to condemn the latte-sipper as superficial, but I realized this evening that that’s not quite it.

After supper we were out in the yard. I was admiring a pale
green spider sitting inside a magenta hollyhock flower.Ibis was burning the weeds and grass that
can’t go into the compost.Isaias was
picking sunflower seeds out of the flowers to nibble.I felt
a satisfaction so deep it startled me, and I understood it was because that’s what we’re made for.Paying close attention to the natural world,
burning stuff, and foraging for things to eat. Never mind that we would starve to death trying to hunt and gather for a living on our tiny scrap of land.
It’s not head-vs.-heart: it’s the hunter-gatherer I’m genetically
programmed to be arguing with the resident of the twenty-first century I am.

I don’t know how much that realization will help me decide who
gets to call the shots, but it always feels better to have things figured out.

(Oh, the other thing I have in common with Miley Cyrus?I've had to delete the photographic evidence because this is a family blog, but let's just say it involves cakes in the form of a portion of the male anatomy. Mine, I would hasten to add, was bestowed upon me by my mother-in-law's prayer group; I'm pretty sure Miley's was her own idea.)